Less than a year ago, residents in low-lying areas had packed up and moved to higher ground as water from a swollen Mississippi River moved out of its banks and covered areas of north Vicksburg and northern Warren County.

The winter flood of 2016 reached a height of 50 feet before slowly subsiding back into its banks by mid- to late January 2016.

This year, the river has been rising, but the predictions from the National Weather Service indicate the river will stay in its banks, at least through February.

“It’s been coming up, but it doesn’t look like we’ll get anything to really think about,” said Greg Raimondo, public affairs officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Vicksburg District.

“We’re about 4 feet above average for this time of year. The National Weather Service does a contingency forecast, where they add 16 days of rain in, and they don’t have it going above 25 feet. It should peak out about Jan. 25, according to the National Weather Service.

Based on the forecast, he said, “We don’t see any problems. It’s really good for the navigation industry that we’ve got this kind of water. We don’t see any flooding right now.”

Presently, weather service officials feel good about the 28-day river forecast, which runs through the first of February.

“It should peak on the 25th and then start falling,” Raimondo said. “But that all depends on what happens on the river up north.”

He said some precipitation is forecasted but not too much.

“We’ve looked at the prediction of rain for the next seven days, and it’s about an inch-and-a-half for the Ohio Valley, and that’s where we keep our eye on, so not a lot of rain predicted for the next seven days.”